Neurophysiologic assessment on cervical spondylotic myelopathy

摘要

INTRODUCTION. Spondylotic myelopathy is a common disease representing the fourth part of non-traumatic paraparesis and tetraparesis. Its diagnosis is supported by clinical, radiological and neurophysiological data. The aim of present research was to demonstrate and to describe the alterations of electrophysiological parameters assessed by different studies, as well as to correlationate the neurophysiological studies according the intensity of radiolgical affection. METHODS. Thirty patients of both sexes were assessed by clinical and imaging diagnosis of cervical spondylotic myelopathy. All of them underwent electromyography, nervous conduction study, F wave, somatosensory and motor evoked potentials. Techniques of descriptive statistics were applied to neurophysiological variables correlating them with the medullary compression degree according to resonance. RESULTS. In most of the cases the evoked potentials were altered. The electromyography demonstrated altered results in all the cases: in the 72,7% there was a diffuse neurogenic pattern, whereas remained showed a radicular irritation pattern. In the 52,1% of cases there were moderate to severe alterations in the study of medium nerve conduction. A significant statistical correlation was present between the abnormality of electrophysiological parameters and the medullary compression intensity observed in resonance images. CONCLUSIONS. The evoked potentials are very useful for the neurophysiological assessment in spondylotic myelopathy where is present a strong association among the alterations of electrophysiological parameters and the resonance images.